I will be very surprised if it's not Mclaren's to lose, I don't think Singapore was ideal for their car.
I wonder if the higher downforce quicker cars that got a better grid slot will suffer more from tyre wear in the race?

Like Singapore, which I maintain is still a good circuit, we'll see plenty of drivers finding the limit over the course of the weekend. It should be entertaining; I wonder if Senna can improve on his four times in the barrier Singapore total?

I'll be in both Suzuka and Yeongam, will attempt to access paddock (got contacts at Renault Sport and McLaren Electronics) and try to give you some insight ;)

Cool. If you have Suzuka weekend GP ticket and are available on Thursday, go to the circuit early morning on Thur, you can attend paddock walk and circuit walk (east half of circuit), and may win the chance to attend driver autograph session later in the day (But you have contacts with teams, so that should be better than that tho! Anyway for anyone interested )

And after the race on sunday there will be circuit walk on west half of the circuit, so you might get broken car parts or tyre marbles to bring back home as souvenir

Cool. If you have Suzuka weekend GP ticket and are available on Thursday, go to the circuit early morning on Thur, you can attend paddock walk and circuit walk (east half of circuit), and may win the chance to attend driver autograph session later in the day (But you have contacts with teams, so that should be better than that tho! Anyway for anyone interested )

And after the race on sunday there will be circuit walk on west half of the circuit, so you might get broken car parts or tyre marbles to bring back home as souvenir

I love the early morning races and through the night practice sessions! Cant wait!

From my part of the world these races are a little rough - my "coffee" races are the European ones - they show at 8am where I am in Canada. The Asian races are brutal - Japan screens at 2AM Sunday morning... uggh. I used to insist on watching each race live... not anymore.

Jenson loves this track. I hope this new transfer news do not distract the team's focus. There is WDC and especially WCC to the taking. I expect 1-2 from McLaren if it is dry and if we have some good luck for sure!!

Jenson loves this track. I hope this new transfer news do not distract the team's focus. There is WDC and especially WCC to the taking. I expect 1-2 from McLaren if it is dry and if we have some good luck for sure!!

And I gotta be honest, I don't understand why Button is so good round here. Sure he has won round here, but I would say Vettel is more of a Suzuka specialist than anyone.

As were the Red Bulls he has been driving. Webber was awfully close to Vettel in '10 qualifying, I'm not convinced he has a particular advantage although his '09 Q3 lap is among my favourites of recent times.

As were the Red Bulls he has been driving. Webber was awfully close to Vettel in '10 qualifying, I'm not convinced he has a particular advantage although his '09 Q3 lap is among my favourites of recent times.

I also like his 2011 one, on the edge for the whole lap, using every centimeter of the track, and still only stealing the pole from Button by taking the shorter route to the line. that was just fantastic.

('10: Webber was close with his second attempt to Vettel's first, who pitted on his second lap after hearing no one was dangerous anymore, IIRC)

As were the Red Bulls he has been driving. Webber was awfully close to Vettel in '10 qualifying, I'm not convinced he has a particular advantage although his '09 Q3 lap is among my favourites of recent times.

His 2011 pole lap was one of the most spectacular in recent years OTOH, with a car forced to wash away .9 of pace no less.

don't be bitter. Sauber have been faster than Lotus in many tracks this year. Suzuka is similar to Spa but only with no so much straights. Sauber have one of the highest downforces in all grid and they will be definitely quick there.

You can count on Williams too, ehr...... well....... .... Pastor should I say

Force India and Mercedes chances of passing to Q3 are like 5%, I would say, though

It took a lot of time for us to get to this point and now we can finally clearly see that is not the Pirellis that were solely making the pecking order. Mclaren's dominant form proved that it's still the car that is majorly responsible for the pace and we can't expect pace, on an aero demanding track, from cars like FI, Mercedes

don't be bitter. Sauber have been faster than Lotus in many tracks this year. Suzuka is similar to Spa but only with no so much straights. Sauber have one of the highest downforces in all grid and they will be definitely quick there.

LOL

they were never faster than Lotus

Spa was their biggest chance if not for first corner incident, and even that was much more due to no Friday running and Lotus messing up their set up

Button has a pretty good record at suzuka always been in the top 8 and finished everytime2000 5th2001 7th2002 6th2003 4th2004 3rd2005 5th2006 4th2009 8th2010 4th2011 1st

I see 2 podiums. The 4th in 2003 was impressive along with the 5th in 2005, but surely to be 'amazing' at a track, toy have to have won more than once?Like Hamilton at Canada, or Vettel at Suzuka (a podium every time he raced there) or Alonso at Malaysia, Massa at Brazil.

I would say Button's best track is Australia.

Singapore 09? That's not really in the mold of the tracks that I was thinking of and even then Vettel could've won there if he did not speed in the pitlane.

I was thinking about tracks with long straights and long, high speed, high downforce corners like Silverstone, Barcelona, Brazil, Suzuka, Nurburgring, Malaysia, China, Korea, etc.